[Perspective]Scot shapes sausages into fresh start

Home > National > Diplomacy

print dictionary print

[Perspective]Scot shapes sausages into fresh start

테스트

Gavin Mackay

If you have a hard time imagining yourself living in a distant land making sausages for a living, Gavin Mackay can empathize ― the only difference is, he’s actually doing it.
Mackay, who is 70 and hails from Scotland, arrived in Korea in 1984, sent by the defense electronics firm he was then working for. How did he go from defense electronics to sausages?
“Sausages were something I always missed from home,” he said. “I used to bring them in from Hong Kong and put them in the freezer. But then our source disappeared. So someone said, ‘Why don’t you make them yourself?’”
He started out with a little “hand gun” that made individual sausages by pushing meat through a hole. Getting the hang of it, he graduated to a larger machine he got through a visiting Scottish musician.
“I started experimenting with spices, and after about 20 or so, someone gave me some from a Scottish butcher and that was perfect. So I got in touch with the butcher and started production.
“I didn’t go commercial at first. I would make sausages on the weekend and freeze them and give some to friends. People started to say, ‘Please, we must give you money for this,’ and more and more people pleaded with me to go commercial.”
And so he did, with a vengeance. He now provides sausages to almost 60 restaurants nationwide, as well as having his own shop in Jongno, and a permanent spot at Shinsegae Department Store.
“We have been very lucky with this business,” he said. “But if I had thought about what I would be doing at this age, this would definitely not be it.”


By Richard Scott-Ashe Contributing Writer [richard@joongang.co.kr]
Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)